{7.18.15}

Hey, Don't have much time today. We've got a really fun day planned in downtown Miami.

Good form..... right....?

This week was crazy. President is doing interview mission wide, so he was unavailable to attend all the zone trainings. Right after emailing last p day, he pulled us aside and told us that he wanted us to go to 8 of the 9 training, by ourselves, in 2 days. Soon he issued us an extra car, and we pulled up a young missionary named Elder Perez from guatamela to be an AP for 2 days hahaha. Christensen and Perez did 2 on Tuesday, and 2 on Wednesday on the West Coast, and Elder Vancott and I went to Hialeah, Miami Beach, Fort Laud, and South Miami. Elder Perez is hilarious. Solid young missionary. He's probably 5 ft flat. He found us 2 new investigators! yeah for extra help.

Where President takes us golfing

We taught and found a TON of people this week, as a direct result of applying President's training. Unfortunately, no one was at church. We saw a really cool miracle after church where we oymed a lady named Kitah. You can tell she's had really rough life, but when we taught her the Restoration the Spirit was so strong and she's really ready to change her life. We're heading back to see her tonight.

The work is good! The Church is still True! and THANK YOU to everyone for the happy birthday wishes, presents, cards, packages. I have the best family and friends in the whole world!

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Lauderhill, FL 33313

{7.11.16} I'm Feelin 22

 I enjoy when it's my turn to ride in the back seat

First of all, thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! As well as for the Cards, presents, packages, etc. It means a lot! 22 doesn't feel too different. I guess I've officially hit the point in my life where there aren't any more big milestones for Birthdays, until I can retire when I'm 65. That should be a good one. I'll hold off awhile before I start counting the days for that one, though. I've still got time.

Downtown Miami

Lots of success in the mission this week. We had MLC again this week. It feels like the weeks really are just days now. Time is flying. Anyways, We brought all the Zone Leaders and the District Leaders, which rarely happens. We had 3 beefy trainings, 2 from us (one on ministering for Leadership and another for ZL's to give to their zones), and President gave a powerhouse training back to the basics of our mission. This week was a HUGE one for the mission. We had a goal we haven't hit in months and doubled our New Investigators. The Training definitely ministered well to the Leadership and we're excited to see how much further we all progress as the training is given to the rest of the mission. The FFLM has always succeeded at helping a lot of souls come unto Christ, but we're getting a lot closer to fulfilling our full potential again.

The Art Warehouse district Downtown, "Wynwood"

Liberty City, but not GTA. Real Life.

In our area, we've seen a few struggles lately. We've been focusing on a lot on exchanges, getting with the Leadership, so our area has taken a hit. We've only really been able to work with one investigator, named R. She's gone through a lot in the past month. She's been left by her Husband, lost her job, lost her car, pretty much anything that can go wrong, has gone wrong. She's facing so many hardships that she's become too discouraged to do much about it. We've been doing everything we can for her, but we can't force her to do anything. It's really sad. We have a recent convert who has a very similar story we are gonna take over there. She's the perfect success story of how having Faith and applying the Gospel of Christ can get you through ANYTHING. Which it can. Try it sometime.

I love my city #DeepSide

Got some good pics while going to/from exchanges this week of Miami Beach/Downtown Miami. As well as some goofing around. Having Elder VanCott in the Trio has been a lot of fun. I'll send em in a seperate email, cause I've got a few.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Lauderhill, FL 33313

{7.5.16} Marchemos adelante

Whats up everyone! Hope everyone had a good week. This last week has been crazy busy with transfers, but nothing too exciting to report on.

The biggest news is that we got a 3rd AP, Elder VanCott. Which is really fun. I mean having 2 guys to live with, drive around South Florida in a truck, and spend the best months of your life with is definitely better than 1. Elder Christensen is on his last transfer, so VanCott and I will get to "kill him." Elder VanCott has 3 left, counting this one, which means I might be locked up here in the office for awhile... oh well.

Transfers went really well. The new missionaries who came in were great! A lot of really solid missionaries. One of them is a cuban/venezuelan--no one probably understands how cool that is, but it's really cool. Taking the dying missionaries to the airport was fun/annoying as usual. Fun because they're so excited and annoying because they really don't care about anything anymore besides getting on that plane and talking about all the things they're going to do when they get home.

As far as missionary work, not a whole lot happened. We spent a lot of the time in the office preparing next week's mlc. One of our investigators, Renee, has been doing really well, and we saw her every day this week after transfers with member. She was a no show to church, though, and we haven't been able to re-establish contact. We hope everything is okay with her, because she's been going through a lot. Also, someone in the mission got into a preventable accident with damage over $3,000 dollars, so we had to bike on our 1st day together. Attached are some swag pics of us rolling through "deep side" Lauderhill on bikes.

We had an awesome 4th of July miracle! On Saturday, we were going through the branch list trying to find less-actives, part member families, or move outs. We saw a "jessica ____" in an area we don't work much and decided to check it out. The GPS took us straight into this small latin ghetto, so we figured it was probably a move out... until we roll around the corner and see the biggest redneck mansion/party house i've ever seen, with a lot of southern pride partying hard to celebrate america's birthday! They had a waterslide, blow up pools, a 30 ft trailer grill, and lots and lots and lots of beer and tobaco. Elder Christensen and VanCott kinda laughed and commented about "coming back another day," but I recognized the red neck pride within myself and walked right up to the gate and started talking to them. Turns out it's a part member family, and there was 2 or 3 active LDS famlies (one a bishop) intermixed within all the partier, chillin in the back hahaha. We all became friends real quick, and they invited us back Monday.

We came back yesterday, and they started grilling us hot dogs and burgers. We started talking to Ed and Margie, who are the parents of Jessica (she's 29). As we were talking, an active member started giving Ed a hard time about not being baptized yet, to which he stubbornly refused to every do. Turns out the active members husband got baptized last year, and they didn't tell Ed so Ed was ticked! and Ed had always said if he got baptized, he would. But when the active member left the room, Ed turned to me and said, "now if you can keep it a secret, me and marg have been talkin... and a lot has happened with my health, and we've been thinking baptism is something that we want to do." LETS GOO!!! hahaha so exciting. We found a white, southern, redneck familiy in the area of the highest concentration of blacks in the misison. Whodda thunk it?

Anyways, hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Lauderhill, FL 33313

{6.27.16} Legendary Week

This week was the best!! I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The House Family, Tony and Karen

So yeah, everyone sealed the deal this weekend! It's been great. Tony and Karen are SO awesome. They called us several times before the baptism, to make sure they weren't forgetting something & that there wasn't anything else they needed to do. Tony has already received the Aaronic Priesthood, and they're going to the temple this Thursday.

Tina is also great. She's really just a homie, but we just got to help her get baptized too. She's always crackin jokes, and she's got a good relationship with the branch President (in the picture) so he'll put her to work in no time with a calling or assignment of some type. Our branch is really small, so Recent Converts get to exercise their testimonies and grow quickly.

Tina and her fam

I love serving in the Sunrise Branch. It's so small, sometimes I have to clench my fist and bite lip at some of the things that happen, but it's one of the coolest experiences to see people grow so quickly, to be so unified, and to give so much, all in the name of progressing the work of the Lord. Many of them very new in the Gospel, and the Church. It's also cool the few life long members in the branch growing as they learn to serve, understand, and help all these new members of the Church. Once again, the church must be true!

Interesting side thought: it's interesting how much hate their is in the world right now. Not just against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, put Christians/religion/mankind in general. For example, take these guys:

Those are Hebrew Israelites. The sometimes preach on street corners, and they love to "bible bash" with Elders and Sisters. Their religion in a nut shell: The real House of Israel is all black bible. Jesus is black, and white people are edomites (descendants of essau) and they're all damned. Because they're white. Nevermind that "faith in christ, repentance, baptism" stuff..

In contrast, you have this guy:

He's a member up in Boynton Beach, and this is his "testimony card" that he gives to people. It's his mormon.org profilfe, contact info, and email. He was a member of the baptist for 20 years, and served as a missionary.... specifcally to target members of the mormon church, missionaries, and those listening to the missionaries. If anyone knows the history of the LDS church, it's this guy. He would follow the missionaries in San Diego, preach outside of the Manti Pageants and other such events, and vowed he would never ever join the "church of the devil" the mormon church. As he would drive to the manti pageant its summer, he'd stop in visit his Aunt in St George, and try and persuade her the errors of his ways. She'd always tell him, "someday, you will make a great member of the church." and then she'd ask him to read the book of mormon, and pray about it. This went on for YEARS, vowing he'd never do it. Until one day he did. Long story short, he got his answer, from the holy ghost, and he couldn't deny it. He knew it was true. That's the short version, if you want to knwo more you can talk to him, his info is right there!!

The moral of the story: Trust in God, not man. I would not be serving a mission if I hadn't received an answer that the message I was preaching is true. God's church is on the earth. He is gathering together his children, in the unity of faith and body of christ Paul described in Ephesians chapters 1,2, and 4. The Apostasy the bible prophesy's of has ended. We are no longer "children tossed to and fro in the winds of every doctrine." God is the source of all knowledge, and if ye lack any wisdom, why not ask of God?

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Lauderhill, FL 33313

{6.20.16}

not a ton to report on this week. Things are going really well in the Sunrise branch! We had Tony and Karen come to church as well as Tina. They'll be getting baptized this week as long as everything goes well and we have time to teach them. 

Tony and Karen are doing pretty great. We taught Tony the word of wisdom on exchange. I was with Elder Thorderson and after we read in 1 Cor about our bodies being temples, we asked what they thought that mean. Karen turned to Tony, backhanded him, and said "THAT MEANS YOU GOTS TO QUIT DRINKIN." and we all laughed pretty good. Then he told us that 2 days before he had already decided that if he was going to get baptized, he would have to stop smoking and drinking. So we took his vape and dumped out his wife Karen dumped out his beers. It was legendary. I have pics. I'll send em next week.

Tina is as chill as ever. She's going down this weekend too. Her only issue is her home is falling apart and is trying to find some where new to move. we're hoping it's nearby. She's seriously the chillest. Idk if I ever said this, but she's from the Bahamas. She's so laid back about everything, yet has one of the greatest moral compasses I've ever seen.

Other than that, Zone Conferences went well. We got a lot of positive feedback. We really just need people to apply it and go find with Faith!

I hope everyone has a great week. Happy fathers day! and hbd to my sister Jenna. She turned 25 today (lol oldie)

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Lauderhill, FL 33313

6.13.16 Miracles

Hood Lyfe

 This week was insanely good! We had hardly anytime to work in our area. we drove from coast to coast 6 times, and had to prepare Zone Conference and start preparing for Transfers, even though they're 3 weeks away. So, with such little time in our area, what happened? God blessed us with miracles.

at the Haitian Conference

First miracle was after knocking an entire apt building and no one answering, we OYMed a lady named R in the Parking lot. She told us that we were "heaven sent" and that she's been looking for a church and to come closer to Christ. We've been teaching her, and she's great. She's going through a lot of really hard things lately. Her Husband left her, her grandma died--she really is just looking for peace. It's cool to watch her find it!

Tina is doing great! We've been seeing her a lot. She reads every day, takes notes--she just continues to be a homie. Her house definitely has a mold problem, so she got really sick and wasn't able to come to church and now her house is getting torn apart. It definitely complicates things a little bit, but she's doing well despite the trials.

Average Day on the Job

Last miracle. Our little branch has NO male, and therefore no Priesthood. It's really hard to find stable, job holding, interested in the Gospel males in our area. We were knocking in the rain, and Elder Christensen and I were racking our Brains of where we could knock where there might be more stable males in our area. I finally turned to him, and said "elder christensen, if you were a stable, job holding male who would someday hold the priesthood, where would you be?" just then, the door in front of us swung open and T opened. He invited us right in without asking any questions, and told us he knew we were "the normans from Jamaica." Long story short--T and his wife K are SWEET! They came to church, they love us, we come over everyday, they make us Jamaican food. T's got small word of wisdom problems, but it's nothing serious.

Basically life, is great in deepside! Nothing more to add.

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Ft Lauderdale, FL

{6.6.16} shorty

Hey fam/friends! Sorry this one is gonna be a short one. I have a lot of cool pictures!... but forgot my camera chord.

So this week I gave my first MLC, basically a training for the missionary leadership. It was an intimidating experience, but was definitely a lot of fun as well. It's easy to train a room full of missionaries who are all boss and know how have success. Unfortunately, Zone Conference is in a week, so preparation for the next training already starts. 

In our area, we have an awesome friend named Tina. She's from the Bahamas, and she's learning a lot and progressing towards baptism on the 19th. We always start off our lessons talking about the upcoming College Football season or basketball, and she's really fun to teach.  Other then that, we find a lot, teach a lot, and drop (stop teaching people) a lot. Life in "Deepside" Fort Lauderdale is full of, like I said last week, great desires but weak commitments.

A recent convert in the Branch, Elvira, got fired because she refused to work Sundays. Since she's been baptized, she's gotten cancer, hospitalized with pneumonia, and now lost her job. But she's got such high faith and she doesn't even care! she's a true example of faith and sacrifice. We ALL can learn a lot from Elvira--remember she's a single mom trying to save up enough money to move out of Ft. Laud into a better neighbor and pays for better schools for her kids.

Sorry for the short one! Everything is going great and I love serving the Lord!

Elder Juanes

Elder Jace Johns

5310 NW 14th Pl

Ft Lauderdale, FL